It’s High Time to Follow the Money Trails!
Hong Kong’s banyan tree roots very visibly follow food and water sources, sometimes with beautiful or dramatic effect.
Following the money that feeds key influencers and power wielders in or over Hong Kong is not so easy, and may be more like following a trail of bread crumbs.
Figure 1 Banyan tree roots on a public pavement in Hong Kong
One can start with the Register of the President's and Members' Interests for the Executive Council Members, including the Chief Executive, here:
https://www.ceo.gov.hk/exco/eng/interests.html
Of particular interest over the past couple of years – due to the enormous, excessive and unchecked influence, if not direct power – have been the medical advisors who deign to dictate to us all what we should do to mitigate the natural spread of one disease that has afforded them so much influence and power.
The attached Summary of Declaration of Interests by Members provides far fewer categories and far less detail for the Avisory Panel on COVID-19 Vaccines than the Register of the President's and Members' Interests for the Executive Council Members.
This is a start, but Hong Kong's reporting requirements for these and other appointees are not fit for purpose.
Among (many) other reasons:
1. No requirement to report financial or other associations of immediate family members.
How many appointees benefit or have benefited from their spouses’ or other immediate family members’ finances and associations?
2. Threshold to report shareholding of any company is 1% of the stock. For a company valued at USD10 billion, that would mean that even a USD99 million shareholding need not be reported.
How many appointees hold or have held over (say) HKD10,000 in stocks of any one specific relevant related company?
3. One could own 0.99% each of 100 pharmaceutical, medical device or medical testing services companies and still not be required to report anything!
How many appointees hold or have held over (say) HKD100,000 in total in stocks of all relevant related companies?
4. One could be employed by, or receive significant research funding from an organisation that receives significant research funding from organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (previously GAVI Alliance and before that, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation) and the World Economic Forum. This could be to the extent that any one of these or any combination of these could determine whether the appointee’s research funding were sufficient to keep him (or her) employed or remunerated by his (or her) employer.
How many appointees receive research funding directly or indirectly from these or similar organisations?
Hong Kong has plenty of talented individuals and teams with far more experience and knowledge of the relevant skills to investigate these further.
It is about time that people of Hong Kong start asking the right questions about motivations and motivators and those with the appropriate capabilities start investigating and answering them.
“Follow the money” has been a short, crude synopsis of Hong Kong for decades.
It is high time to “follow the money trails”!
Rather than track money trails, maybe following latest science is more important. Vitamin D, Ivermectin etc… are very useful compared to expensive Pfizer and Merck drugs
The donations from Bill Gates can be tracked. It’s in their annual reports. Last time I looked, nothing suspicious